5 Best Tablets For The Holidays

Looking for the perfect gift for your beloved this year? Something tells us a tablet might be just the ticket. BYTE looks at five: The Apple iPad 4, the iPad Mini, the Samsung Galaxy 10.1, the Microsoft Surface, and the Kindle Fire HD.

The Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 is the tablet version of the Samsung Galaxy Note smart phone, coming in at about twice the size of the smaller phone-tablet hybrid, or "phablet". The Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1's big draw is its S Pen stylus. With the S Pen, the Galaxy can do the one thing that the Apple iPad does not do: It makes it easy to take handwritten notes, sketch, draw, and annotate documents directly on the screen. It's the first full-size tablet to combine all the basic features found in other tablets with handwriting.

The Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 also has more sophisticated multitasking than the iPad or other Android tablets. Watch our video review.

There are only two downsides to the Galaxy Note 10.1, neither a deal breaker in our book. One is that it lacks a mobile broadband option. Although it gives you more freedom, mobile broadband can be costly -- a lot of people prefer to rely on Wi-Fi or mobile hotspots instead. The second problem is that it supports Bluetooth 4 only via a separately sold adapter. This means you can't use an external keyboard without paying for and attaching an extra piece of equipment -- unlike other Android tablets or the iPad. But if you don't mind carrying the extra piece, or if you don't plan to do a lot of typing, you might not care that it needs an adapter to use a keyboard.

The Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 is available at a number of online and brick and mortar retailers and is $499.99 with 16 GB or $549.99 for 32 GB.

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